Broad River

The Broad River is a tidal channel, in Beaufort County and Jasper County County. The channel flows mainland (West) and Port Royal and Parris Island (East). The Coosawhatchie River flows into the Broad River at the head. It joins the Coosaw River channel Northeast and continues Southeast to the Atlantic Ocean as the Port Royal Sound.

The Broad River bisects Beaufort County, in some ways both literally and culturally. Though in many respects it it an over-generalization, the "North of the Broad" area, which includes the county seat of Beaufort, is the less-affluent but historically steeped half of the county, while the "South of the Broad" area represents swanky new growth, fueled by transplants from the North. Travel from one end of the county to the other — say, Hilton Head Island to Beaufort — was long and arduous but became less so when the state built a bridge to span the Broad River in 1957, considerably shortening the trip.

The Historian's View

The river's role as a barrier between people stretches to colonial times, when it divided two parishes, said historian Larry Rowland. The river continued in that role as the railroad and automobile came into vogue, he said. Even after the bridge was built, the two areas developed differently. Hilton Head Island and Bluffton quickly transformed from rural, largely unsettled timber country into bustling metropolitan areas, Rowland said.

Meanwhile, Beaufort, once thought of as the capital of the sea islands, has proven less willing to embrace the economic and population growth its southern neighbors welcomed. "Bluffton and Hilton Head are walking rapidly into the future," Rowland told The Beaufort Gazette for an Aug. 22, 2009 article. "There's a lot of Beaufort that doesn't want to walk rapidly into the future."

As a result of that legitimate difference, Rowland said, it's not surprising the river can still incite some people on both sides of its banks. "The idea there should be tension and difference between the two sides of the Broad River is pretty much natural," he said. "They're different people."

The Southern View

When former Bluffton mayor and county councilman Emmett McCracken left southern Beaufort County in 1957 for the Army shortly after graduating from high school, many of the streets in Bluffton were paved with oyster shells, and Beaufort was the county's unquestioned "center of gravity." "You went to Beaufort because you had to go to Beaufort," he said in the Gazette's 2009 article. "There was always the sense that you had to wrestle the northern part of the county to get anything done."

The trip to Beaufort for official business took well over an hour, so many southern Beaufort County residents headed to Savannah for shopping, doctor's appointments and the like. There were also two separate school districts at the time, he said.

By the time McCracken he returned in 1989, however, Hilton Head had become its own municipality and the first of many gated communities had sprung up in his hometown. These days, the northern portion of the county is the more rural of the two, but McCracken said the sharp differences that once characterized life here have begun to fade.

He saw that process occur during his time on County Council in the 1990s, and it has continued with the recent cooperation between Beaufort County and the town of Bluffton on stormwater issues, he said.

The Northern View

During the youth of former Beaufort Mayor Henry C. Chambers, all the banks were in northern Beaufort County, and no one would have thought of going to Bluffton for dinner. Now, Hilton Head has built its own town and its own banks, and Chambers knows it takes 28 minutes to get across the river to his favorite movie theater.

That wasn't so much the case in the late 1960s, when the county's population fractured largely along the line of the river in debating a proposal to build a massive industrial plant on the Victoria Bluff section of Bluffton. Northern residents generally wanted the plant and its promised jobs, but early arrivals to Hilton Head worried it would mar the pristine environment they cherished. That incident helped to damaged relations somewhat, Chambers said, but civic leaders worked for years afterward to repair them.

Former Hilton Head Mayor Ben Racusin, for example, once led a cruise by boat to Beaufort as a "peace gesture," Chambers said. Chambers, who was in favor of the plant, said he never considered its opponents to be his enemies. "We buried that hatchet," Chambers said. "In time, it all worked out."

The Regionalist's View

Beaufort County is far from the only place in the Lowcountry that bears the scars of rivalry, said Chris Bickley, executive director of the Lowcountry Council of Governments. Ridgeland and Hardeeville act as something of twin cities at opposite ends of Jasper County, for instance, he said. The Salkehatchie swamp might pose an even more formidable obstacle to cooperation in Hampton County than the Broad River does in Beaufort, he said.

"I think every county has its divides," said Bickley, who frequently travels between Beaufort, Jasper, Hampton and Colleton counties. "Some of them are more strongly felt than others."